Rash of Copycat Bomb Threats Hit Bay Area

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, July 31, 1996

Bay Area law enforcement officials had to contend with a spate of bomb scares yesterday, further straining citizens' nerves in the aftermath of Saturday's fatal pipe bomb explosion in Atlanta.

Though police and criminologists acknowledge that the scares must be taken seriously, they also say they are not unexpected, noting that a rash of threats typically follows any major bombing or arson incident.

"This is no surprise," said San Francisco State University criminologist Michael Rustigan. "It's scary to see these kinds of incidents and threats, but they will subside. This is a kind of afterburn (from Atlanta). After the Oklahoma City bombing, there were over 200 threats to federal buildings."

Elementary school in Oakland opens time capsule from 1927San Francisco Chronicle

Brides of March walk through San FranciscoSan Francisco Chronicle

WildCare rescues Western scrub jay from rodent glue trapWildCare

The Regulars: The CarpenterJessica Christian

The San Francisco Hall of Justice was partially evacuated yesterday morning after the district attorney's office received reports of a bomb threat from a local television station.

Mike Wesley, the news assignment editor at KPIX TV, said a station intern received a call from a person asking if "we had heard about a bomb threat at the DA's office. (The intern) called the DA, and asked if there was anything to it. Apparently, that was the first they heard about it, and they evacuated."

District attorney's spokesman John Shanley said staffers were evacuated from their third-floor offices for about an hour while police searched for a device.

They found nothing, and staffers returned to work at around 11 a.m.

In Moss Beach, the San Mateo County sheriff's bomb squad investigated a suspected explosive device wrapped in a paper bag outside a neighborhood market.

It turned out to a bogus bomb, a package consisting of road flares, a shotgun shell and a spurious triggering mechanism. Squad members detonated the device at the site.

A man who was walking his dog witnessed one of the explosions, but was not injured. Police said the concussion of the bomb set off the burglar alarm of a nearby parked car, but resulted in no property damage.

The bomb scares follow an incident Sunday at San Jose International Airport, in which an Alaska Airlines jet with 140 people on board was evacuated after flight attendants discovered a note on a food cart scribbled with the words "Bomb on Board." The plane was searched, but no bomb was found. The incident delayed all traffic at the airport for 20 minutes.

Criminologists emphasize that there is a big difference between people who plant bombs and people who make idle threats to plant bombs.

"A person who actually plants a bomb is typically looking for revenge," says Rustigan. "Their motivation may be quite abstract -- a grudge against the government or 'foreigners,' and a desire to strike back at them. They harbor a great deal of deep hostility, even rage."

Crank callers making bomb threats, on the other hand, tend to be young males who are "idle and bored, looking for kicks," said Rustigan. "They make the threat, they see the results of the fuss they caused on the news, and they enjoy a great sense of power, of self-worth."

Rustigan said pipe bombers may cause less damage individually than people who set off truly huge bombs, but that they are collectively just as dangerous.

"Eighty percent of the bombs that are exploded in this country are pipe bombs," said Rustigan. "Both the materials and the instructions are ubiquitous. We worry about international terrorism, but the real threat is right here -- it's homegrown. There are thousands of people across this country who know how to make and use these devices."